[Fixed] Escape key is too eager when creating tasks or projects

When I try to create a new task or project, pressing Escape cancels the dialog a bit too easily for me. I could have spent a couple of minutes typing out the title, tags and a note and it’s all gone with a single tap of Escape.

I’d suggest:

  • When the user started editing a task (any of the fields has been changed) and he tries to cancel, ask for a confirmation. Maybe you could add an exception to this rule when only the title has been edited.
  • When the tag dropdown is open, Escape should close the dropdown instead of cancel task creation.
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I assume you try to close the tag drop-down by pressing esc, but instead it closes the whole editor. Is that correct?

I don’t like the pop-up on escape idea. There should be a way to cancel things instantly.

But I agree that it would be better to close the tag selector drop-down, instead of closing the whole editor. I will add it to the list of small improvements.

I’d also like the escape button to cancel out the drop-down field when working with tags, at that has several times made me cancel the task I’m adding.

Something else that might have been helpful would have been if you canceled out a task by accident, creating a new one right afterwards would possibly keep the old values
Not sure the best solution for this, as it would be annoying if you’d also end up trying to create an entirely new task and it would be pre-filled with other information.

Maybe some kind of “refill previously closed information” type of button.
Just wanted to put it out there, but could this would be a non-issue once the tags drop-down field has been fixed

Yeah, that’s it!

I can agree there. I couldn’t think of how often I cancel out of creating a task, but it could definitely be often enough to have insta-cancel available.

This could be interesting, though maybe confusing UX-wise. I don’t know, honestly.

An “undo” button could be worth trying, too (like the snackbar that appears when you delete a message in Gmail). Undo the cancel sounds quite confusing, but you could have a snackbar-ish thing that says: “Cancelled new task. Restore

Several times happened, when I wanted to create a recurring task, I accidentally opened the set start date date picker. Recognising the mistake, I pushed the ESC button. But, that closes the whole create item form, and not just the date picker. Honesty, I find that unintuitive. I think, it would be better, when I pushed the ESC, the application would only close the date picker.

The flow would be like this:

  • Click on new Item.
  • Select scheduled, set start date menu item. Date picker opens
  • Push ESC.

Expected:

  • The date picker closes, the filled out form remains on screen

Actual:

  • The date picker and the filled out close, and I loose the unsaved changes.

I think this is related: Escape key is too eager when creating tasks or projects

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Hi, this does not appear to be fixed for me. It seems that the dev has strong opinions on ESC being a one-step action. However, I remember now that the ESC eagerness is the last straw that led me to stop using Everdo in the past. In particular:

Scenario: In the inbox, start creating a note. Have a title, then go to the description. Write out something detailed, probably 2-5 minutes of work. Accidentally press ESC.

Expected: One of:

  • Dialog pops up: Are you sure? Pressing escape again cancels and returns to the item editor. Pressing enter confirms.
  • Item is saved as “draft” that is grayed out, but progress can be retrieved
  • Item is deleted, but a snackbar with UNDO is shown. Also, ctrl/cmd-Z will retrieve it.

Actual: new in-progress item is accidentally deleted and there is no way to recover it.

Now, you may say that an accidental escape will never or almost never happen. However, I have found it happening at least weekly when I used it. I forget all the different scenarios, but I think there are a lot of different dialogs where you can edit information, and sometimes the ESC behavior is surprising. Like, I wanted to escape out of something within the editor, not discard the entire edit.

Yep absolutely agree on this one. Additionally this is related to Input lost when switching lists while entering new item - #5 by manu
This should be high prio - I can’t count the times I lost input.